Luxor4u

"There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" - the implication being that statistics are, in a sense, less believable than gross untruths.

"You can prove anything with statistics" . Well....no you can't. But you can use statistics to prove the gullibility of people.

I'll illustrate this with a recent gem from Egyptian Streets :


Birth Rate in Egypt Falls By 62 Percent Over the Past Three Years: Health Ministry

EGYPTIAN STREETS
FEBRUARY 27, 2018

Egypt has successfully managed to decrease the birth rate in the past three years with a rate of about 62 percent, Egypt’s National Population Council (NPC) of the Health Ministry said in a release.

Deputy Health Minister Tarek Tawfeek stated that the new birth rate mounted to 6.68 million in 2015, and it fell in 2016 to 2.6 million and reached its lowest in 2017 with only 2.55 million new births. He stressed that the state is on the right track to decrease the birth rate. He further went on to say that the population strategy aims to reach 112 million in Egypt by 2030 instead of 128 million.[/b]

https://egyptianstreets.com/2018/02/27/ ... -ministry/

That must hearten the "head-in-the-sands" sycophantic supporters of the current government which clearly has policies taking Egypt in the right direction. The doom mongers who forecast a dire over-population problem can be ignored. All is well. Comments on the ES article illustrate that some - many - have swallowed the message.

But let's look at the ES statement more closely.

"Birth Rate in Egypt Falls By 62 Percent ". Really?? Not according to Index Mundi. It depends which dates you use but the birth rate has actually risen between 2015 and 2017 - from about 26 to 29 births per 1000.

https://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=eg&v=25

"The new birth rate mounted to 6.68 million in 2015..........and reached its lowest in 2017 with only 2.55 million new births."

Pardon me for being skeptical! Nothing short of an environmental catastrophe of biblical proportions would explain such a drop. The figures are clearly nonsense. What the actual figures for births in 2015 and 2017 are I cannot seem to locate. Maybe someone can help. But a drop from 6.68 million to 2.55 million....no way!

As the Index Mundi graph indicates, there may be some signs of a downturn in the population explosion, but to bandy about figures of a 62% drop in birth rate is grossly misleading. Perhaps it was intended to be.

I haven't - to date - regarded ES as a blind cheer leader for the government and can only hope this article is simply an example of poor, sloppy, prose rather than anything more sinister.

Well just from general observation there doesn't seem to be a drop, still as many new mummies on the ferry with their bundles wrapped in thick blankets. How the poor children don't suffocate with all the clothes they wear even when its very hot.

carrie wrote:Well just from general observation there doesn't seem to be a drop, still as many new mummies on the ferry with their bundles wrapped in thick blankets. How the poor children don't suffocate with all the clothes they wear even when its very hot.

It is amazing the amount of clothing they wear.

I watched my little 2 -year old "granddaughter" being dressed yesterday with FOUR layers....indoors!

Its a general rule in the west that births drop immediately before and during an economic decline/recession. Its a new area of study and may not apply to the non-west. Here is the recent NPR radio program on this emerging area. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way ... rs-suggest

No I don't believe the stats, no I don't believe the Egyptian stats.

Stats work if there are skilled staff, good collection systems, clear definitions and high personal integrity. All are missing in Egypt.

The central governments stats agency is CAPMAS. Its always been dominated by the military. By dominated I don't mean just their Chief Executive.

8 years or so the ILO sent a team into CAPMAS to improve their labour market stats. Its to the credit of the ILO (unlike the other UN agencies in Egypt) that they marched out and then made an announcement why - expressed in UN language. In simple terms they had no confidence and felt their money and time would be buried after they left. If only those who have put $US100 billion of disappearing money in 40 years had come to a similar conclusion. A reasonable interpretation of their comments is that local skills were deplorable. How unexpected.

One day when I get the blood up I'll take a close look at CAPMAS.

It is possible that the Health people have done their own stats but that would require initiative, enterprise and creativity so I think they have done nothing just got it from CAPMAS.

At this stage its fair to assume that if the truth suits they will publish that. If it doesn't they will change it.

On this particular matter the President has staked his image on lower births and gave at least one big speech on it about 4-6 months ago. Therefore there are political motives for having it drop.

What I don't understand is that the IMF, World Bank, UNESCO (certifiable idiot narcissists) appear to rely on local stats (guess they don't have any option) So when they hand over our money they rely on the government inflation stats, unemployment and international reserves which they must have fundamental personal doubts about. Hard to know.

No one in the UN environment has taken a stick to the stats or CAPMAS. There is little academic literature on it. Nevertheless I believe its a deep and large problem. You cannot manage a society unless you know what is happening in it via a modern collection of stats.